it's provided in its entirety and he wanted the board to understandthat he produced this on a pro bono basis . and with to benefit the neighborhood interest . next slide please. this is why we're here. this is the tree that fell in front of the main library may 29 and crushed or damaged a truck. just going back a little bit, the previous time this tree was inspected was july 18th 2018 prior to the previous iteration of the library histories. at that time back in 2018, but was very diligent. and prior to the removal hearing june july and august of 2018 they inspected all the trees.

so once a month for 33 months. except for the last month, august 2018. i think it's ironic but once that case ran its course and the library withdrew itsrequest to remove trees in june 2020 , no inspections were made. no furtherinspections were made . these were put to the public use of 19 trees that are going to fallover and damaged people or property . but once the library gave up, they didn't inspect the trees again and they haven't until this one fell down in may 2021.

the decision on this one tree failure was to remove all the trees . next slide . so in the buff it says once this tree fell off inspected all the other trees. so at that timethere were 19 trees minus one that fell . and we went into the database and discovered they didn't inspect all the trees. they inspected11 out of 18 . so we have a little fault in the inspection area. i've also looked in the database hundreds of times to see the word inspect and wondered what thatmeant . is it a drive-by to see if the tree is still standing ? do theylook at the tree ? there are no noteson why they wrote that down . let's see, next slide please.

this is from the actual tree database and it shows the one with the red line around it is the one that failed recently. you'll see towards the bottom only to trees on high street were inspected. when they say they inspected all the other trees tosee if they were safe they did not do that . at leastaccording to the official record . next slide please. so dpw said okay, this tree is down, we better get rid of all these trees. so arborist legate noted by dpw this was premature and lacking in basic observations in data. that's a pretty harsh thing to say to an arborist who ispaid to observe and use data . next slide please.

let's see. most of the complaints that buff post had to do with the trunks of the trees and unfortunately you can see here the trunk of the tree is burie under papers . little bricks that fell on the tree well. leggett said you can't condemn a tree without looking at. it's like if you have a problem with your foot and you go to the doctor and he gives you a diagnosis and you take off you shoes, what kind of diagnosis is that ?this is comparable. we can't see the place where they're objecting to the tree. there's a bunch of terms like no ground layer, large diamond is not an indication, reverse taper, standing water is an issue.

so basically the tree inspection wasfaulty . they didn't inspect all the trees and pretty much just sent up to flair and said we've got to get rid of all these trees so that concludes my remarks at this point. >> clerk: we will now move on to the bureau of urban forestry. >> thank you commissioners and president hondaand appellants . i think we're getting there in terms of what was done and said at the hearing back in 2018. it's definitely a lot of information to recover. out of respect for all the appellants it might require all 35 minutes whatever it takes. i'm going to go ahead and share my screen.

so we're going to get into the details we've been talking about but i want to step back for a moment for those commissioners that may not hav used this live a couple of years ago . it's just going to be a couple of minutes about ficus trees but this is a ficus tree on th left in this image . ficus trees were not prone to enhance or maintain sound structure decades and years ago. we've seen a lot of ficus failures in the last 10 years. so to address these ficus failures, we wanted to understand should there be a lessening and how strict and tight we are in our decision-making process when we approve a tree for removal

we've always had high standards not to remove trees that are relatively healthy so you'll hear us talk about this term with code dominant stands, to stands of approximately equal size and the image on the left is certainly worse than image on the right but even with a wide angle of attachment says into stems of equal diameter and make them look more prone to fail.this is what we're seeing citywide and this is before streettree sf . this is where two thirds of street trees were the responsibility to maintain by the property owners in 2014 the director created in order for tree removal criteria for ficu trees . this is a couple of years before the passage of street tree sf.

there was quite a bit of media coverage. we have a large number of removals over a traynor of years and are concerned with ficus trees is their branching attachments. move forward another year or two and in 2017 the city became responsible for maintaining all the street trees so over the last several years as we go through systematically and strategically to evaluate all the street trees in san francisco we visit he blocks that are designated through our ... just our branchmanager, our database manager . we look at where we have the most trees and higher areas of volume and in the busiestareas of the city .he's on the trees we've beenprioritizing for maintenance . some of that maintenance efforts have come before you in

the form of the old tree removal. in particular phase value among many others . you have information on our website about our concern about ficus trees . two years ago in 2018 the library submitted a permit application to remove all 19 ficus trees adjacent to the property at 100 larkin street and spend time going through the last couple of years very quickly.we have a lot of information we want to cover. the library sought placement of the trees in 2018 and again there was quite a process working with the appellants. i'm glad that the conversation has maintained a positive note this evening becausethere really was a lot accomplished both before the check in with board of appeals and after .

and in early 2020 the item was going to be continued so i even have in my own brief and update at the february 2020 where we were but at that point in time we were still the proposal was still a compromise where we were still seeking removal of the trees with 11 remain. so we had not, that's one important detail. due to the impact from the pandemic the san francisco public library had to scale backinitial mitigation . there were several mitigations they were clearly in charge of. they were going to occur with their funds and on their property . the application to remove those trees was withdrawn in june 2020. once the application was drawn for public works to pursue removal of any ficus trees for the library and entirely new process need to have been initiated. in 2020 public works was

working with other appellants from hayes valley and mission guarding the proposed removal of ficus trees and one of the asks from the appellant i gratefully was slowing things down. at this point we had just to remember it seems crazy but part of this is in the tenderloin. the playgrounds in the city were closed so as very and others were asking could we not remove trees until the parks areback open ? we have trinity plaza apartments. can we wait until those trees are planted. there was a lot of emphasis on slowing the process down so tonight when i hear that we're speeding it up i want to gently and with great and other respect say there's been a slowdown.

there has been a slowdown. it wasunfortunate that the library withthrough the permit application but at that point in timealthough it would have been ideal to continue the conversation , it didn't . everyone was in the depths of the pandemic . we are following conditions for removal of ficus with a tremendous amount of citizen involvement. then technically speaking where not scheduled to prune the ficus trees until a future maintenance cycle and in april of may prior to the failure near the entrance we were actively discussing the process for public works to prune the trees at the main library and had proactively ahead of what the schedule dictatedbecause it was time to prune the trees . after the ficus failed on may 29 the bureau had to reassess our ownapproach to the ficus trees . that point there was no clear-cut of the trees. of all the trees we look at there was one ficus tree on the corner of hyde closest to grow

that we felt should be removed on an emergency basis so of 18 trees the quote unquote unilateral decisionto remove the trees, we removed one tree on an emergency basis . in may of this year we had a ficus tree fail from the root crown. this was a near miss the public works employee seated in the vehicle at the timetaking a break . that was definitely unfortunate. so prior to 2021 to reduce the number of ficus trees we removed that the main library public works was willing to monitor the issue so the root crown of ficus areas were a couple species in the lower crown area but these concerns were very well documented in our conversations with the appellants and also in our resulting decision. the root crown lower trunk failure at the main entrance was unfortunate but it also

confirmed the validity of our original concernsabout the structural integrity of the ficus trees at the main library . we did post the remaining tree , 17 trees for removal and we hada hearing in july of this year . this is the tree posted for a 24 hour removal notice and it's important to cover a lot of the information from this year because one of the appellants really didn't have a lot of questions about what were the activities this year so i'll move through themquickly but want to address those concerns in her brief . this was the tree posted for emergency removal and regarding the assessment of the trees these trees were look at and evaluated closely not just by myself but by a tree crew. by urban forestryinspectors, multiple inspectors . our assistanceintended . this was an all hands on deck

we need to understand what to do here. we had the library emailing us saying you all hada new this . we did too. we need you toevaluate those trees . positive feedback from mister carnes. you are not able to document every inspection that we've made on these trees but i personally have been out here probably at least once a month looking at these trees . regarding, this is just a slide showing how many people evaluated these trees even though it's not documented in the tree database. there are a lot of conversations about the management of trees and it won't always necessarily in that database. best management, absolutely. but i want to ensure everybody these needs are closely evaluated. in september wedid lose another tree .

this is on the high street. we had a truck pull up and damaged this branch. yanks a large stem free and the remaining section of the tree with the cracks present was unstable and had to be removed on an emergency basis. this is an image of our tree group removing it on an emergency basis. while on-site our tree crew pruned theremaining trees to improve clearance over hyde street i just wanted to point that out . again 2021 this year the library had removed and withdrawn their permit application . we had no basis on which to pursue removal at that point in time. it's literally like starting over and i don't want touse the phrase pulling the rug out . but that's not a permit or all that work is not something that's actionable if we want to

moveforward on removal . that said , our street tree sf guide to when we would be out therenext , to me i saw the cooling-off traynor but there was no consciousdecision not to engage . the communication didn't occur. but i do want to talkabout again in 2018 we were talking loud and clear about our concerns about the root grounds and potential failure .that said we didn't have any evidence or failures to that point in time. at that point in time we were willing to scale back the number of removals which we will get to. the root crown of a tree is all like the central nervoussystem of the tree . picture the base of your neck,

where your head joins your spinal column. it wants to be in the open air with no soil and no water pressing against that. this is information just taken directly off our resulting decisions from 2018 that highlighted our concern about the lack of trunk taper, calling a reverse trunk taper. i even have it here that we acknowledged as mister leggett does that the trees are planted below grade . that's still a form of reverse taper when it's coming out from the ground and it's literally in reverse taper, narrow when it comes out of the ground and gettinglarger but still considered a reverse taper . look at these two images, very similar. the tree on the left is the one that failed in front of the entrance to thelibrary . verysimilar conditions .

these are representative of other basins adjacent to the library sitting in water . the trees were planted in 1996 so essentially sitting in wate for 25 or so years . not a good thing for a street tree. i'm going to have to move through what i have next, the individual trees with our photos of the trees. we evaluated these trees multiple timeslooking at them . there's no taper visible. when wind impacts these trees it impacts the tree, the strongest in the lower trunk there's no doubt about that . so one of the responses i want to be clear about is why would we, the question is why did we not remove papers to evaluate what's going onbelow . that would not do undo 25 years of having the rootgrounds very . just because your opening back

up to the air.it does not meanthe damage is still there . one of the concerns we have that we've discussed for the library appellants is that if as mister leggett proposed by email this week that we excavate and put a great over these openings, there's no way for the library to clean out what ends up falling down within the weather is inchesor a flex in-depth . there's no wayfor them to clean that out . and so these will still inevitably be filled with water each day when the sidewalk is the area just going through and showing the co-dominance stems with included bark.again that each of these trees hasbeen evaluated again and again . noting the conditions are concerned about stem failure aboveground . now our concern, our new concernabout roof failures belowground .

this again is the tree that was removed on an emergency basis back after the tree that failed aroundthe corner . so we have detailed images of all this. we disagree with mister legates assessment that we are negligent in not removing these papers the library will talk about their own maintenance concerns . they are not going to be able to maintain a pace basin is recessed here because of the way that they need to clear out thearea of the sidewalk . theyneed to wash , be able to wash it out even if we do that are still having those trees sit instanding water every day . i'll wrap up these individual assessments again, on the 29th when this tree failed it's not even clear. i wish our tree crew had cut

remnants so we could look at was there dk present . but there may not be any decay present that's how weak the lower front of these trees our when they're hit withstrong winds . and yes they all survived the storm last week but it doesn't mean that the storm coming in at one degree difference is going to impact them differently. i want to point out on this day it's a saturday went failed was with no outstanding wins to note. that's important to note. again our employee okay. she cannot. this is an image ofthe tree that failed . i do want to move on to our planting plan. and that's just about wraps it up. this is just a close-up of the kind of damage that's being done to the root crown and removing those papers is not going to reverse that damage unfortunately and they're going

to continue to sit in water. regarding the replacement plan i think again, i'm going to respectfully disagree that we had committed to not removing any trees. we had settled on removing eight and we were finalizing what phase meant. exactly what the library and public works. strongly we should remove those a tree soon. now regarding replacement species it was something that was notfinalized . our recommendation was to replace with reference species like red maple for london plane trees and sit and have their feet wet every day of the year withoutdeveloping these routes crown issues. baby planted at the proper depth . our goal is to remove and replace these trees within six months . the public library is committed to watering the trees. we are committed to using the same amount of protection for

these trees for 10 foot tall protective screens. close communication with the library should they see any maintenance issues we will restate if necessary and structural pruning would be done to make sure these new trees don't have the facts like the ficus too. regarding replacement tree spacing at our hearing in 2018 there are three trees in the center of this image. 334 and five which do not meet current planting guidelines but the proposal is to remove these trees without easily replanting them in these locations because we need greater clearances between the basins and the brush shelter and more clearance from the streetlight . someoverall look at the replacement tree numbers . where talking about the removal of the seven remaining ficus. there were a total of nine and plant six replacement trees on

that site whichis maxing what can be planted following are guidelines . the removal of nine trees on growth there were a total of 10 before. planting 10 pleasantries on grove so overall going back to 2018 the overall impact is removal of 19 trees replacing with 18 because of the existing site constraints and adjacent to the library. we do ask that the final species selectionbe left to the bureau of urban forestry but we have enjoyed robust conversation with the appellants . they would prefer versus what publicworks at the library would prefer are deciduous trees . we are still maximizing the size benefits red mapleand lemon plant trees are considered large so we still are capturing those benefits . this is another example of ultimately the bureau of urban forestry needs to reserve the right on making the final pcs decision.

just in the last few weeks another layer of review has come up through the preservation team with the planning department to is checking in with public works citywide in certain areas to just say they want to make sure when we replaced trees if there is a historic preservation in mind that we are bearing that in mind so we reached out to them to say we have a hearing and i need to is feedback asap. is still in conversation with them. but there are, there's a cultural landscape report for this block 354 and the guidance is to replace species that would be in keeping with the civic center area. so we're going to continue to work with the senior historic preservation contact to really just get under the hood and understand those red maple, is

that going to be in line. we believe it will be noted that the ficus trees are here on the bottom left of the image. regarding tree basin construction the appellants who i again appreciate all the advocacyand work that we jointly put in . they asked involve a landscape architect to review basin construction sothis ties into replanting . we really jointly determined that sometimes things can be overengineered. wedon't need to do a lot of engineering here . we need toplant the tree at or above grade remove the papers .and replant species at or slightly above grade with backfill of soil. use organic mulch to cover the tree basin. the backfilling of the tree basins with decomposed granite

would only occur after the trees had been established and no longer require supplemental watering that would be approximately three years. this is what we mean when we talk about planting a tree at or slightly above grade to make surewe don't have ruth krauss that are sitting in additional soil or sitting in water every day so the root crown are replanted in line with the top level of sidewalk . this is an approximation of what 24 inch box size trees look like . these are red maples on the right and i believethat's politeness on the left . they're showing examples of that. there are two opportunities to replant additionaltrees on growth . they were paid years ago by th library and we're going to open those backup . big picture, san francisco public works we have a goal of ensuring safe lean and green infrastructure andpublic rights-of-way. we have street treat sf . >>